If They Only Knew...

A mother has many secrets, and I trust you not to reveal to my children those secrets I reveal to you today.

See, I was in the kitchen preparing lunch and I couldn't help overhearing my two oldest children, who were playing on the deck, just outside the open kitchen window.  Said one son to another, "Mom would have a FIT!"

I, being a prudent mother, slightly scared but eager to prevent said fit with an appropriately placed warning not to attempt whatever maternal tantrum-inducing plan was on the backyard picnic table, peered out the window and asked my scheming sons just why "mom would have a fit."

My oldest looked up and pleasantly answered, "If we let Captain Brownie out in the house."

Whew.  It's not so bad.  Captain Brownie is the lizard they are subjecting to observation this afternoon, and if he were to be let loose in the house, I would cheer for his escape and ask him to catch any bugs on his way to freedom.  If a lizard did have free roam of the house, and I'm not saying I'd encourage such a circumstance, I'd be far more concerned for the reptile's safety than my own.  It's a lizard, not a gila monster.  Besides, lizards and I are kind of old pals.  Little do my sons know that a major part of my South Florida upbringing involved the capture of lizards larger than the one they have made prisoner in a plastic pineapple container.  I've told them, but I don't think they believe me.  Mom?  Catch lizards all day?  Nah, it couldn't be!

They also don't know - at least they don't seem to fully grasp the reality - that I could out-burp them and any of their friends... and probably any of their friends' daddies, too.  This isn't a gift I routinely display.  As a thirty-something mother in the South, it doesn't seem quite genteel enough to go around burping out people's names.  I can do it, and I've done it for the boys.  They laugh.  They beg me to do it again...  but a week later when they burp at dinner, they look at me as if I'm going to scold them for such awful table manners. I acquiesce.  "No burping at the table."  "Say 'Excuse me.'"  All that good manners stuff.

I'm Mom.  I'm supposed to teach them good manners.  I'm supposed to be appalled when they fail to practice those good manners.  Apparently, I'm supposed to be scared of lizards, too.

But, well... between you and me, I was a kid once upon a time, and I get it.  Burping is fun, especially if you can do it better than anyone else and gross someone out in the process.  Lizards are cool, especially if there's someone around who's deathly afraid that the harmless little reptile might get loose and come within ten yards of her foot.  I guess there's some part of my boys that expects me to be that someone who finds burping scandalous and who will jump on a chair or hang from the chandelier if she discovers a lizard loose in the house.  I'm not sure I'm quite up for the job, but I'll try.  At the very least, I'll insist they keep Captain Brownie in his cage.  I just won't tell them my rule is more for the poor lizard's protection than my peace of mind...